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A review by jgn
The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong by Matthew Stewart
5.0
I don't know who you are, but if you live in the business world, you should read this book.
I have worked with many MBAs and people who read books like In Search of Excellence, From Good to Great, Competitive Strategy . . . and take all that stuff uncritically.
And I've worked with other business people who are effective because they are, at bottom, intelligent analyzers and synthesizers of what they read and learn from others. Must of these folks are simply good people who have been well-educated or have educated themselves.
Both groups are going to learn a lot from this book. The first group, I hope, will see that the foundations of what they've been reading are weak indeed; and I think the second group will find confirmations of suspicions they've had about the ideology of business management that surrounds so much of what happens nowadays in corporations, small and large.
So this book by Matthew Stewart blows all that "management theory" stuff up. It is a sustained critique of the ideas of the business management work. Stewart starts with Taylor ("taylorization") and works his way through the likes of Mayo, Ansoff, and on to Drucker, Porter, Peters, and Collins.
Watch out when someone with training in philosophy analyzes your arguments! The critique here boils down to the observation that these guys are great at predicting the past. What it comes down to is that very few of the claims made by the managerial tradition are true hypotheses, and the gurus don't present any real evidence or control groups.
The key chapter is the one on Michael Porter and "strategy." Porter's claim about strategy is that a business can exploit various market inefficiencies. But Stewart shows quite clearly that there is simply no predictive basis offered for the claim.
Elsewhere in the book, there are gems, such as the proximity of Drucker's theory of management to socialism (181-182), the conflict between managers and owners (196, 217), business theory and the anti-intellectual tradition in American life (267) . In the long run, Stewart shows how businesses love the rhetoric of the free market but do whatever they can to create oligarchies and monopolies.
If you read this book, you will see that Romney's claims that his BCG / Bain experience is somehow predictive of his ability to get anything done with the US federal government is probably a crock.
The book ends with an elegant dismissal of the MBA curriculum, and a defense of the liberal arts and the cultivation of "ethos."
Laced through the book are brief chapters outlining Stewart's own experience at a McKinsey spinoff. It is not happy reading. Basically it illustrates an argument sounded many times throughout the book that the management consulting business is about pleasing the customer -- i.e., making CEOs and managers feel good about themselves.
I have worked with many MBAs and people who read books like In Search of Excellence, From Good to Great, Competitive Strategy . . . and take all that stuff uncritically.
And I've worked with other business people who are effective because they are, at bottom, intelligent analyzers and synthesizers of what they read and learn from others. Must of these folks are simply good people who have been well-educated or have educated themselves.
Both groups are going to learn a lot from this book. The first group, I hope, will see that the foundations of what they've been reading are weak indeed; and I think the second group will find confirmations of suspicions they've had about the ideology of business management that surrounds so much of what happens nowadays in corporations, small and large.
So this book by Matthew Stewart blows all that "management theory" stuff up. It is a sustained critique of the ideas of the business management work. Stewart starts with Taylor ("taylorization") and works his way through the likes of Mayo, Ansoff, and on to Drucker, Porter, Peters, and Collins.
Watch out when someone with training in philosophy analyzes your arguments! The critique here boils down to the observation that these guys are great at predicting the past. What it comes down to is that very few of the claims made by the managerial tradition are true hypotheses, and the gurus don't present any real evidence or control groups.
The key chapter is the one on Michael Porter and "strategy." Porter's claim about strategy is that a business can exploit various market inefficiencies. But Stewart shows quite clearly that there is simply no predictive basis offered for the claim.
Elsewhere in the book, there are gems, such as the proximity of Drucker's theory of management to socialism (181-182), the conflict between managers and owners (196, 217), business theory and the anti-intellectual tradition in American life (267) . In the long run, Stewart shows how businesses love the rhetoric of the free market but do whatever they can to create oligarchies and monopolies.
If you read this book, you will see that Romney's claims that his BCG / Bain experience is somehow predictive of his ability to get anything done with the US federal government is probably a crock.
The book ends with an elegant dismissal of the MBA curriculum, and a defense of the liberal arts and the cultivation of "ethos."
Laced through the book are brief chapters outlining Stewart's own experience at a McKinsey spinoff. It is not happy reading. Basically it illustrates an argument sounded many times throughout the book that the management consulting business is about pleasing the customer -- i.e., making CEOs and managers feel good about themselves.